Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of OrfordKGKBPC (26
August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known before 1742 as Sir
Robert Walpole, was a Britishstatesman who is generally regarded as having
been the first Prime Minister of
Great Britain. Although the position of "Prime Minister" had no
recognition in law or official use at the time, Walpole is
nevertheless acknowledged as having held the office de facto because of his
influence within the Cabinet.

A Whig who was first elected in 1701, Walpole
served during the reigns of George I and George II. His tenure is
normally dated from 1721 when he obtained the post of First Lord of the Treasury;
others date it from 1730 when, with the retirement of Lord
Townshend, he became the sole and undisputed leader of the
Cabinet. The "longer" version of the tenure is generally upheld by
the contemporary press, most notably that of the opposition, who
focused far more attention upon Walpole than his counterpart.
Walpole continued to govern until his resignation in 1742 prompted
by the Battle of Cartagena
disaster, making his administration the longest in British history.
Because of his homely ways and strong Norfolk roots, he was often known to both
friends and detractors as the Norfolk Squire.

Early life
and family

Walpole was born in Houghton Hall, Norfolk in 1676. His father, Robert
Walpole, was a Whig politician who represented the borough of
Castle Rising in
the House of
Commons. His mother was Mary Walpole (née Burwell) and he was
the third of seventeen children, eight of whom died during infancy.
Walpole would later prove to hold the record amongst Prime
Ministers for the greatest number of siblings.

Walpole entered Eton College as a scholar in 1690 and
matriculated at King's College, Cambridge in
1696.[1] In 1698
he left the University of Cambridge after the death of his only
remaining elder brother, Edward, so that he could help his father
administer the family estate. Walpole had planned to become a
clergyman but abandoned the idea when, as the eldest surviving son
in the family, he became the heir to his father's estate.

On 30 July 1700, Walpole married Catherine Shorter (died 20 August
1737), with whom he later had two daughters and four sons:

After Lady Walpole died, Walpole married his mistress, Maria Skerritt, before 3 March 1738. They
had been living openly together in Richmond, Houghton Hall and
London society since about 1724, and she had borne him an
illegitimate daughter who he eventually had ennobled as Lady Maria
Walpole. This daughter married Colonel Charles Churchill of
Chalfont (1720—1812), a great-nephew of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, with whom she had
two daughters. One of these daughters, Sophia Churchill, married
Horatio Walpole, a great grandson of Robert Walpole and Mary
Burwell who was also descended from the 1st Baron Burghley.
The second Lady Walpole died of a miscarriage three months after
the couple's marriage. As a couple they were commemorated as
Polly and Macheath in John Gay'sThe Beggar's Opera which he wrote in
1728.

Early
political career

Walpole's political career began in January 1701 when he won the
general election in Castle
Rising --- the constituency once represented by his father who
had died just three months earlier. He left Castle Rising in 1702
so that he could contest the neighbouring but more important
borough of King's Lynn, a
constituency that would re-elect him at every subsequent general
election for the next forty years.

Despite his personal clout, however, Walpole could not stop Lord
Godolphin and the Whigs from pressing for the prosecution of Henry
Sacheverell, a minister who preached anti-Whig sermons. The
trial was extremely unpopular with much of the country, causing the
Sacheverell riots, and was followed by the
downfall of the Duke of Marlborough and the Whig Party in the
general election of 1710. The new ministry, under the leadership of
the Tory Robert Harley, removed Walpole from his
office of Secretary at War but allowed him to remain Treasurer of
the Navy until 2 January 1711. Harley attempted to entice him to
join the Tories, but Walpole rejected the offers, instead becoming
one of the most outspoken members of the Whig Opposition. He
effectively defended Lord Godolphin against Tory attacks in
parliamentary debate, as well as in the press.

Angered by his political attacks, the Tories sought to ruin and
discredit him along with the Duke of Marlborough. In 1712, they
alleged that he had been guilty of corruption as Secretary at War;
these charges, however, stemmed from political hatred rather than
fact. Walpole was impeached by the House of Commons and found
guilty by the overwhelmingly Tory House of Lords; he was then imprisoned
in the Tower of
London for six months and expelled from Parliament. The move,
however, backfired against the Tories, as Walpole was perceived by
the public as the victim of an unjust trial. His own constituency
even re-elected him in 1713, despite his earlier expulsion from the
House of Commons. Walpole developed an intense hatred for Robert
Harley (by then Earl of Oxford and Mortimer) and Lord
Bolingbroke, the Tories who had engineered his impeachment.

Stanhope/Sunderland
Ministry

Sir Robert Walpole

Queen Anne died in 1714, to be succeeded by a distant German
cousin George I under the Act
of Settlement 1701. George I distrusted the Tories who he
believed opposed his right to succeed to the Throne. (The Act of
Settlement had excluded several senior relatives of Anne on the
grounds of their adherence to Roman
Catholicism). Thus 1714, the year of George's accession, marked
the ascendancy of the Whigs who would remain in power for the next
fifty years. Robert Walpole became a Privy Councillor and rose to the position
of Paymaster of the Forces in a
Cabinet nominally led by Lord Halifax, but
actually dominated by Lord Townshend (Walpole's brother-in-law) and
James Stanhope.
Walpole was also appointed chairman of a secret committee formed to
investigate the actions of the previous Tory ministry. The
individuals who had brought about Walpole's impeachment in 1712
were now themselves attacked for purely political reasons: Lord
Oxford was impeached, and Lord Bolingbroke suffered from an act of
attainder.

Lord Halifax, the titular head of the administration, died in
1715. Walpole, recognised as an assiduous politician, was
immediately promoted to the important posts of First Lord of the Treasury
and Chancellor of the
Exchequer; in this position, he introduced the sinking fund, a
device to reduce the national debt. The Cabinet of which he was a
member was often divided over most important issues. Normally,
Walpole and Lord Townshend were on one side, with Stanhope and Lord Sunderland
on the other. Foreign policy was the primary issue of contention,
for Walpole and Townshend believed that George I was conducting
foreign affairs with the interests of his German territories—rather
than those of Great Britain—at heart. The Stanhope-Sunderland
faction, however, had the King's support. In 1716 Townshend was
removed from the important post of Northern
Secretary and put in the lesser office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Even this change did not appease Stanhope and Sunderland who
secured the dismissal of Townshend from the Lord-Lieutenancy in
April 1717. On the next day, Walpole resigned from the Cabinet to
join Townshend in the Opposition. In the new Cabinet, Sunderland
and Stanhope (who was created an Earl) were the effective
heads.

Soon after Walpole's resignation, a bitter family quarrel
between the King and the Prince of Wales split the
Royal Family. Walpole and others who opposed the Government often
congregated at Leicester House, the home of the Prince
of Wales, to form political plans. Walpole also became a close
friend of the Prince of Wales's wife, Caroline. In 1720 he improved his
position by bringing about a reconciliation between the Prince of
Wales and the King.

Walpole continued to be an influential figure in the House of
Commons. He was especially active in opposing one of the
Government's more significant proposals, the Peerage Bill, which
would have limited the power of the monarch to create new peerages. Walpole brought about
a temporary abandonment of the bill in 1719 and the outright
rejection of the bill by the House of Commons in the next year.
This defeat led Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland to reconcile with
their opponents; Walpole returned to the Cabinet as Paymaster of
the Forces and Townshend was appointed Lord President of the
Council. By returning to the Cabinet, however, Walpole lost the
favour of the Prince of Wales (the future King George II) who still
harboured disdain for his father's Government.

Rise to
power

Soon after Walpole returned to the Cabinet, Britain was swept by
a wave of over-enthusiastic speculation which led to the South Sea Bubble. The Government had
established a plan whereby the South Sea Company would assume the
national debt of Great Britain in exchange for lucrative bonds. It
was widely believed that the Company would eventually reap an
enormous profit through international trade in cloth, agricultural
goods, and slaves. Many in the country, including
Walpole himself, frenziedly invested in the company. By the latter
part of 1720, however, the company had begun to collapse as the
price of its shares plunged. Walpole was saved from financial ruin
by his banker who had earlier advised him to sell his shares; other
investors, however, were not as fortunate.

In 1721 a committee investigated the scandal, finding that there
was corruption on the part of many in the Cabinet. Among those
implicated were John
Aislabie (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), James
Craggs the Elder (the Postmaster General), James Craggs the Younger (the
Southern
Secretary), and even Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland (the
heads of the Ministry). Craggs the Elder and Craggs the Younger
both died in disgrace; the remainder were impeached for their
corruption. Aislabie was found guilty and imprisoned, but the
personal influence of Walpole saved both Stanhope and Sunderland.
For his role in preventing these individuals and others from being
punished, Walpole gained the nickname of
"Screenmaster-General".

The resignation of Sunderland and the death of Stanhope in 1721
left Walpole as the most important figure in the administration. In
April 1721 he was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor
of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. Walpole's
de facto tenure as "Prime Minister" is often dated to his
appointment as First Lord in 1721. In reality, however, Walpole
shared power with his brother-in-law Lord Townshend, who served as
Secretary of State for the Northern Department and controlled the
nation's foreign affairs. The two also had to contend with the
Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Lord Carteret.

Premiership under George
I

Under the guidance of Walpole, Parliament attempted to
deal with the financial crisis brought on by the South Sea Bubble. The estates of the
directors of the South Sea Company were confiscated
and used to relieve the suffering of the victims, and the stock of
the company was divided between the Bank of England and East India
Company. The crisis had significantly damaged the credibility
of the King and of the Whig Party, but Walpole defended both with
skilful oratory in the House of Commons.

Walpole's first year as Prime Minister was also marked by the
discovery of a Jacobite plot formed by Francis Atterbury, the Bishop of
Rochester. The exposure of the scheme crushed the hopes of the
Jacobites whose
previous attempts at rebellion (most notably the risings of 1715
and 1719) had also failed. The Tory Party was equally unfortunate
even though Lord Bolingbroke, a Tory leader who fled to France to
avoid punishment for his Jacobite sympathies, was permitted to
return to Britain in 1723.

During the remainder of George I's reign, Walpole's ascendancy
continued; the political power of the monarch was gradually
diminishing and that of his ministers gradually increasing. In 1724
the primary political rival of Walpole and Townshend in the
Cabinet, Lord Carteret, was dismissed from the post of Southern
Secretary and once again appointed to the lesser office of Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. In Ireland, Lord Carteret used his power to
secretly aid in the controversy over Wood's Halfpence and support
Drapier's Letters behind the
scenes and cause harm to Walpole's power.[2][3] Walpole
was able to recover from these events by removing the patent.
However, Irish sentiment was situated against the English
control.[4]

Now, Walpole and Townshend were clearly the supreme forces in
the ministry. They helped keep Great Britain at peace, especially
by negotiating a treaty with France and Prussia in 1725. Great Britain, free from
Jacobite threats, from war, and from financial crises, grew
prosperous, and Robert Walpole acquired the favour of George I. In
1725 he was created a Knight of the Bath, and in 1726 a Knight of
the Garter (earning him the nickname "Sir Blustering").
Moreover, his eldest son was granted a barony.

Premiership under George
II

Walpole's position was threatened in 1727 when George I died and
was succeeded by George II. For a few days it
seemed that Walpole would be dismissed but the King agreed to keep
him in office upon the advice of Queen Caroline. Although the King
disliked Townshend, he retained him as well. Over the next years
Walpole continued to share power with Townshend but gradually
became the clearly dominant partner in government. The two clashed
over British foreign affairs, especially over policy regarding Austria, but Walpole was
ultimately victorious, with his colleague retiring on 15 May 1730.
This date is often given as the beginning of Walpole's unofficial
tenure as Prime Minister. In the wake of his triumph Walpole was
able to conclude the Treaty of Vienna creating the
Anglo-Austrian alliance.

During the following years Walpole was more dominant than during
any other part of his administration. Having secured the support of
Queen Caroline and, by extension, of King George II, he made
liberal use of the royal patronage, granting honours and making
appointments for political gains. He selected the members of his
Cabinet and was capable of forcing them to act in unison when
necessary; no previous head of the administration could wield so
much influence. He increasingly used the Duke of Newcastle as a staunch political
ally.

Walpole, a polarising figure, had many opponents, the most
important of whom were Lord Bolingbroke (who had been his political
enemy since the days of Queen Anne) and William Pulteney (a
capable Whig statesman who felt snubbed when Walpole failed to
include him in the Cabinet). Bolingbroke and Pulteney ran a
periodical called The Craftsman in which they incessantly
denounced the Prime Minister's policies. Walpole was also satirised
and parodied extensively; he was often compared to the criminal Jonathan Wild as,
for example, John Gay did
in his farcical Beggar's Opera. Walpole's other
enemies included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope,
Henry
Fielding, and Dr Samuel Johnson.

Despite such opposition, Walpole secured the support of the
people and of the House of Commons with a policy of avoiding war
which, in turn, allowed him to impose low taxes. He used his
influence to prevent George II from entering a European conflict in
1733 when the War of the Polish
Succession broke out. In the same year, however, his influence
was seriously threatened by a taxation scheme he introduced. The
revenue of the country had been severely diminished by smugglers so
Walpole proposed that the tariff on wine and tobacco be replaced by an excise tax. To countervail the
threat of smuggling, the tax was to be collected not at ports but
at warehouses. This new proposal, however, was extremely unpopular
and aroused the opposition of the nation's merchants. Walpole
agreed to withdraw the bill before Parliament voted on it but he
dismissed the politicians who had dared to oppose it in the first
place. Thus, Walpole lost a considerable element of his Whig Party
to the Opposition.

After the general elections of 1734, Walpole's supporters still
formed a majority in the House of Commons although they were less
numerous than before. Though he maintained his parliamentary
supremacy, his popularity began to wane. In 1736 an increase in the
tax on gin inspired riots in London.
The even more serious Porteous Riots broke out in Edinburgh after the King
pardoned a captain of the guard (John Porteous) who had commanded
his troops to shoot a group of protesters. Though these events
diminished Walpole's popularity, they failed to shake his majority
in Parliament. Walpole's domination over the House of Commons was
highlighted by the ease with which he secured the rejection of Sir
John Barnard's plan to reduce the interest on the national debt.
Walpole was also able to persuade Parliament to pass the Licensing Act
of 1737 under which London theatres were regulated. The Act
revealed a disdain for Swift, Pope, Fielding, and other literary
figures who had attacked his government in their works.

Decline

The year 1737 was also marked by the death of Walpole's close
friend Queen Caroline. Though her death
did not end his personal influence with George II, who had grown
loyal to the Prime Minister during the preceding years, Walpole's
domination of government continued to decline. His opponents
acquired a vocal leader in the Prince of Wales who was
estranged from his father, the King. Several young politicians
including William Pitt the
Elder and George Grenville formed a faction
known as the "Patriot Boys" and joined the Prince of
Wales in opposition.

Walpole's failure to maintain a policy of avoiding military
conflict eventually led to his fall from power. Under the Treaty of Seville (1729),
Great Britain agreed not to trade with the Spanish colonies in
North America. Spain claimed the right to board and search British
vessels to ensure compliance with this provision. Disputes,
however, broke out over trade with the West Indies. Walpole
attempted to prevent war but was opposed by the King, the House of
Commons, and by a faction in his own Cabinet. In 1739 Walpole
abandoned all efforts to stop the conflict and commenced the War of
Jenkins' Ear (so called because Robert Jenkins, an
English mariner, claimed that a Spaniard inspecting his vessel had
severed his ear).

Walpole's influence continued to dramatically decline even after
the war began. In the 1741 general
election his supporters secured an increase in votes in
constituencies that were decided by mass electorates but failed to
win in many pocket boroughs (constituencies subject to
the informal but strong influence of patrons). In general the
government made gains in England and Wales but this was not enough to overturn the
reverses of the 1734
election and further losses in Cornwall where many constituencies were
obedient to the will of the Prince of Wales (who was also Duke of
Cornwall). These constituencies returned Members of Parliament
hostile to the Prime Minister. Similarly, the influence of the Duke of Argyll
secured the election of members opposed to Walpole in some parts of
Scotland. Walpole's new
majority was difficult to determine because of the uncertain
loyalties of many new members, but contemporaries and historians
estimated it as low as fourteen to eighteen.

In the new Parliament, many Whigs thought the aging Prime
Minister incapable of leading the military campaign. Moreover, his
majority was not as strong as it used to be, his detractors being
approximately as numerous as his supporters. In 1742 when the House
of Commons was prepared to determine the validity of an allegedly
rigged by-election
in Chippenham, Walpole and others agreed to
treat the issue as a Motion of No
Confidence. As Walpole was defeated on the vote, he agreed to
resign from the Government. The news of the naval disaster against
Spain in the Battle of Cartagena de
Indias also prompted the end of his political career. As part
of his resignation the King agreed to elevate him to the House of Lords as
the Earl of
Orford and this occurred on 6 February 1742. Five days later he
formally relinquished the seals of office.

Later
years

Lord Orford was succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord Wilmington
in an administration whose true head was Lord Carteret. A
committee was created to inquire into Walpole's ministry but no
substantial evidence of wrongdoing or corruption was discovered.
Though no longer a member of the Cabinet, Lord Orford continued to
maintain personal influence with George II and was often dubbed the
"Minister behind the Curtain" for this advice and influence. In
1744 he managed to secure the dismissal of Carteret and the
appointment of Henry
Pelham whom he regarded as a political protegé. He advised
Pelham to make use of his seat in the Commons to serve as a bridge
between the King and Parliament, just as Walpole had done.[5]

Lord Orford died in London in 1745, aged nearly sixty-nine
years; he was buried in his home town of Houghton. His earldom
passed to his eldest son Robert who was in turn succeeded by his
only son George. Upon the death of the third Earl, the Earldom was
inherited by the first Earl's younger son Horace Walpole (a
famous writer and friend of poet Thomas Gray), who died without heirs in
1797.

Legacy

Walpole's reign - political satire

Walpole's reign - political satire

Walpole's influence on the politics of his day was tremendous.
The Tories became a minor, insignificant faction, and the Whigs
became a dominant and largely unopposed party. His influence on the
development of the uncodified constitution of Great Britain was
less momentous even though he is regarded as Great Britain's first
Prime Minister. He relied primarily on the favour of the King
rather than on the support of the House of Commons. His power
stemmed from his personal influence instead of the influence of his
office. Most of his immediate successors were, comparatively
speaking, extremely weak; it would take several decades more for
the premiership to develop into the most powerful and most
important office in the country.

Walpole's strategy of keeping Great Britain at peace contributed
greatly to the country's prosperity. Walpole also managed to secure
the position of the Hanoverian Dynasty, and effectively
countervailed Jacobitism. The Jacobite threat was ended, soon after
Walpole's term ended, by the defeat of the rebellion of 1745.

Another part of Walpole's legacy is 10 Downing Street. George II offered
this home to Walpole as a personal gift in 1732 but Walpole
accepted it only as the official residence of the First Lord of the
Treasury, taking up his residence there on 22 September 1735. His
immediate successors did not always reside in Number 10 (preferring
their larger private residences) but the home has nevertheless
become established as the official residence of the Prime Minister
(in his or her capacity as First Lord of the Treasury).

Walpole also left behind a famous collection of art which he had
assembled during his career. This collection was sold by his
grandson, the 3rd Earl of Orford, to the Russian Empress Catherine II in 1779. This
collection—which was regarded as one of the finest in Europe—now
lies in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint
Petersburg, Russia.

The nursery rhyme, "Who Killed Cock
Robin?" is said to be an allusion to the fall of Walpole
(Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes ISBN
0-19-860088-7).

From Wikiquote

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of
Orford (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), normally known as Sir
Robert Walpole, was a British Whig statesman who is generally
regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great
Britain.

Sir Robert Walpole

Sourced

The balance of power.

House of Commons Speech, 1741.

All those men have their price.

Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.
(1919), stating "'All men have their price' is commonly ascribed to
Walpole", and citing Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, Vol. iv, p.
369: "Flowery oratory he despised. He ascribed to the interested
views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of
pretended patriots, of whom he said, 'All those men have their
price'".

Anything but history, for history must be false.

Walpoliana, No. 141.

The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future
favours.

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford was born in Houghton, Norfolk on August 261676. He died on March 181745. He was England's first Prime Minister in 1721. He was Prime Minister for a longer amount of time than anyone who came after him.
Literally, he was not the first prime minister of Great Britain, because the term was not actually used until 1905, he was actually the "First Lord of the Treasury". Therefore the first British prime minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman because the term "Prime Minister" started being used 5 days after he was elected.